Katie Thompson gives direction to Mike St. Cyr as he works on set pieces for the play "Your a Good man, Charlie Brown" Wednesday evening at Mary Crapo School in Swartz Creek. Sarah A. Miller/ Flint Journal

SWARTZ CREEK, Michigan — Ginny Redmond, 43, recalls the days before she started sharing her mother with an entire community.

Back then it was just mom Katie Thompson, a home-based silkscreener who drove a cool van, and the six Thompson kids. Like a modern-day Von Trapp family, they were a troupe. And their first public performance was the quirky children’s tale, “Once Upon a Mattress,” performed in a church basement.

That was in 1981.

Today, the curtain is still up for the Swartz Creek Center Stage Theater she founded 30 years ago this summer. In that time, there have been 90 opening nights — everything from the highbrow comedy (“The Foreigner”) to large-scale productions (“The Music Man”).

But the one constant in that time has been Thompson herself, the theater’s executive producer and the real star of the center stage.

“My mom just continually amazes me,” says Redmond, who helps direct children’s productions today. “After 30 years, to still have the desire to continue with community theater, is not an easy thing to do.”

Kaylie Briggs. 23, a student at Mott Community College, first met Thompson when she was 12. Kaylie had never been in a play before and was uncertain and shy. To make matters worse, she was cast as a Polynesian girl in the musical, “South Pacific.” The role meant she would be covered in concealing makeup and a black wig, and all her lines would be in French.

“She knew it was a definitely scary time to start out,” said Briggs, who plays Sally in this month’s production of “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

“It was my first show, but I have never looked back. And it’s mostly thanks to Katie.

“All of us around here call her our mom. She is my second mom.”

At 67, Thompson cuts a pixieish figure, a Mary Martin-style woman with short blonde hair and jaunty walk. In blue jeans, an overshirt and a T-shirt that reads, “Greetings from Swartz Creek,” she leads a guest backstage for “Charlie Brown” one weekday afternoon. Home base is the auditorium in the historic Mary Crapo School, now used by alternative education students.

Thompson likes to call the theater she’s nurtured a family affair. Besides Redmond, Thompson’s son, Dave, 46, who works at the Whiting and for the University of Michigan-Flint, still helps with lighting and set design. Husband Jim, a 30-plus-year basketball coach, serves as announcer before every show. Daughter-in-law Lori Thompson is the drama director at Fenton High.

Besides her own children, many others look to Thompson as Swartz Creek’s version of acting coach Lee Strasberg, though with a decidedly maternal flair.

“She’s definitely a go-to kind of person. She cares about her community, friends and family. She’s a rock,” says Mike St. Cyr, 26, who’s been with Thompson since he was cast in “Percival the Performing Pig” at age 6. He is now a theater student at UM-Flint and will be going to New York for graduate school.

“I hear her voice all the time in my head when I do something on stage. She’s definitely a great mentor to me.”

Thompson says she isn’t thinking about quitting anytime soon.

“It’s been very rewarding, especially when you have a child, or adult, who is timid, unsure of themselves,” said Thompson. “And by the time you’re done with them, they’ve really developed their self-confidence.”

She once worked with a woman so reticent she was unable to return unwanted items to the store she purchased them from. She had a closet full of unwanted purchases. After working at the center stage, she learned to “march right up there” to ask for a refund, Thompson said.

Thompson also smiles when she hears parents tell her their “mouse in the corner” has started raising a hand and speaking out in class. Even better are stories of children with speech impediments who test out of speech class after their theater work.

As Thompson strides across the darkened stage, outfitted with a 4-foot-tall doghouse for the upcoming show, she says as long as the school district continues to make space available for the troupe, she’s in.

“There’s a tremendous number of people who care to help, volunteer their time here, build sets, supervise the children, make props,” she said.

“And when you form a cast, especially in the summer, you end up really banding together. You become an extended family.”